Kitten rescued by earthquake team in Blackburn (From This Is Lancashire)

Kitten rescued by earthquake team in Blackburn

6:00pm Thursday 31st May 2012 in News By Nafeesa Shan, Reporter

A SIX-week-old kitten was rescued with specialist earthquake search and rescue equipment after it became trapped in a wall cavity.

Six-inch-long, tortoise-coloured Curious George got stuck in the the bathroom in a house in Abraham Street, Blackburn, which was being renovated.

He was eventually pulled to safety by firefighters two-and-a-half hours after they were called.

Owner Lisa Browning, 37, said: “We only got him on Sunday and we called him Curious George because he was in and out of everything – and he’s certainly lived up to his name.

“I was frantic when I first discovered he’d gone.”

Lisa could hear him crying, but even after removing the skirting board and calling a builder to take out a window sill, she could not find him, so she called the fire brigade.

But they couldn’t find George because their thermal imaging equipment was being disturbed by the heat of the sun.

“That’s when they had to bring in the search and rescue team,” said Lisa. “I was so relieved when they got him out and even though it’s caused a lot of damage, I’m happy George is OK.

“Afterwards he went to sleep like nothing had happened.”

The Urban Search and Rescue team, drafted in from Leyland, has been sent to earthquake disaster zones to pull out survivors from rubble. The team and the equipment has been used in natural disasters in Pakistan, Haiti, Turkey and Japan.

Crew manager David Widdop said: “We have never used the equipment before to find a cat.

“It was six weeks old and was only six inches long so the equipment lent itself very well because it was quite a complex situation.”